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Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

Quick response:

Paul George actually blew two lay-ups (four points)
The refing at the end was awful. Miller got two fouls, one for tripping over his feet, one for diving with Lance guarding him. Also, Lance got thrown to the ground on a rebound. If lance get's those calls his game looks much better.
Is it to early to mention cutting DJ, not just benching him? The only thing I've ever seen worse than him running the offense is his D.

Good summary. If you just called for Donnie Walsh's head for squandering a huge amount of cap space on this down graded bench it would be perfect.

This is getting old. I'm sure Donnie is just as disappointed as any of us. He signed a guy who is the most athletic player ever to wear a Pacers jersey, can create his own shot and shot a high percentage from deep. He signed a starting PG to be our back up and an athletic 7 footer to back up Roy. I would say 95% of us felt that he got exactly what this team was lacking last year and that our bench would be much improved.

Stop acting like you saw this coming from day one and that he "squandered" cap space!

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

This is getting old. I'm sure Donnie is just as disappointed as any of us. He signed a guy who is the most athletic player ever to wear a Pacers jersey, can create his own shot and shot a high percentage from deep. He signed a starting PG to be our back up and an athletic 7 footer to back up Roy. I would say 95% of us felt that he got exactly what this team was lacking last year and that our bench would be much improved.

Stop acting like you saw this coming from day one and that he "squandered" cap space!

I guess I was in the 5%. I was never of the opinion that DW made the right moves and brought in just what we were lacking. Some were that blind, but I think most were disappointed from what he did with our long waited cap space anyway. I thought it was a crime to spend significant amounts of cap space on a shuffle of the bench from the word go. However you're right in that I didn't think the bench would be this much worse and I hope DW is disappointed.
The thing is that it's his job to spend that cap space on the right players and to manage the timing of signing our own players. He failed at this and should be held accountable.
If you're a DW fan don't worry though, it won't happen. Our best bet is to hope that he doesn't screw with the roster any more until he retires which I hope is at the end of the season.
Until then or until I see this bench out playing last year's bench, I'll be calling out DW.

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

This is getting old. I'm sure Donnie is just as disappointed as any of us. He signed a guy who is the most athletic player ever to wear a Pacers jersey, can create his own shot and shot a high percentage from deep. He signed a starting PG to be our back up and an athletic 7 footer to back up Roy. I would say 95% of us felt that he got exactly what this team was lacking last year and that our bench would be much improved.

Stop acting like you saw this coming from day one and that he "squandered" cap space!

I guess I was in the 5%. I was never of the opinion that DW made the right moves and brought in just what we were lacking. Some were that blind, but I think most were disappointed from what he did with our long waited cap space anyway. I thought it was a crime to spend significant amounts of cap space on a shuffle of the bench from the word go. However you're right in that I didn't think the bench would be this much worse and I hope DW is disappointed.
The thing is that it's his job to spend that cap space on the right players and to manage the timing of signing our own players. He failed at this and should be held accountable.
If you're a DW fan don't worry though, it won't happen. Our best bet is to hope that he doesn't screw with the roster any more until he retires which I hope is at the end of the season.
Until then or until I see this bench out playing last year's bench, I'll be calling out DW.

I guess I just don't see any moves that could've been made that would've been drastically better than what was done.

I like the addition of Ian. The way he was added was a little puzzling though.

I loved the addition of Green. DW was the only guy who thought highly of him. Both Pritchard and Shaw thought he would be a real difference maker off the bench. No clue why he's been so irrelevant.

I thought DJ was a good signing. Starter experience and a low risk 1 year deal.

In a perfect world, I would've loved to have gotten Mayo and Kaman, but neither wanted to be backups. I liked Barbosa, but his complete fade in the Miami series left a really bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Kudos to you guys for seeing this coming. What moves do you feel should've been made instead?

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

I think we could have landed Kaman with a longer contract offer in the same price range and that would have been my first choice. Having Kaman playing at the 4/5 would have been a huge upgrade over what we had and a huge upgrade of giving those minutes to Ian and Hans. That and the bench we had and we'd be talking about how much closer we've came to the finals not hoping to make the playoffs. Failing to do that I think the F.O. should have forced the signings of Hibbert and Hill back a week or 2. Scola was already waived prior to the signings so they had that knowledge and all they would have had to do was to back up the signings by a few days to make a run at him. They should have forced those signings back to be able to land bargain players beyond what they knew about Scola. Once Nash was gone I didn't see any reason to go after a pg since no real upgrade was available and as nice as Mayo would have been, going after another backup wing player was not a priority to me and we had no knowledge of what was going on with Granger.
Imagine right now Kaman coming in for Hibbert then rotating West out and Hibbert in, no more Ian and Hans. Imagine having DC backing up Hill and having the option of starting Barbosa, Jones, or Lance and never seeing Green or DJ on the floor.

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Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

Ah, the classic, "no one could have seen this coming," argument. It gets used often here, historically. For example drafting Shawne Williams instead of Rondo. No one could have known we should draft the best PG available instead of a SF when SF was our strongest position! Drafting Tyler over Holiday... we still have no point guard, but NO ONE could have known drafting the best point guard available instead of a low ceiling big man who can't even play both positions in his best case. Now this, no one could have known giving a marginal bench big a 4 year contract would be foolish. NO ONE could have known that acquiring players from the worst teams in the league last year wasn't going to improve us. No one.

Except those of us who said all of these things prior to them happening. It's not hindsight bias when you call it long before it happens. No one... smh.

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Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

Only few of us(the haters) could see this coming, there is a whole thread full of people ("sunshiners and positive people") trashing us because we didn't agree and still don't agree with their point of view, the same "sunshiners" and "positive people" are still in denial about the off season maybe because they don't want to prove us "hater" right or because of pure blindness.

The fact is that the Pacers had the potential to have one of the best off seasons ever and they screwed it up by signing a bunch of scrubs, I mean they had everything, cap space, trade assets, picks, they were also under the cap what else do you Fing want?

They also had a one time opportunity to sign amnesty players without having to give up anything of value because they were under the cap but they decided not to pursuit anybody because "they knew what they were doing", how stupid can a front office be to decide not to sign quality players pretty much for free?

I've been saying it for a while the Pacers signed the equivalent of Solomon Jones, Kareem Rush, Travis Diener and to do it they decided that this time they were going to spend 10mil dollars a year, how stupid is that?

Just imagine if the Pacers had a competent front office and instead of signing the scrub of Mahinmi(while giving away a trade asset) they have waited for Philly to amnesty Brand, or for Houston to amnesty Scola, imagine if instead of signing the scrub of Green they decided to keep Barbosa for veteran minimum, imagine if instead of DJ we have DC and instead of Young we have DJ.

If the Pacers had a competent front office they would have made similar moves to the ones I'm describing but instead they decided to make moves that only worse GM's could think about making, hell I don't think I can see another worse GM making the same stupid moves I just can't.

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Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

The one that gets me the most is I often see people lamenting how we haven't had a quality point guard here in a decade or so... yea, of course we haven't, we let teams behind us draft all the good point guards ala Rondo, Holiday, and Lawson. Then they STILL refuse to hold the management accountable. Woe is me we don't have a point guard, but let's not be upset that all star quality point guards get drafted behind us repeatedly, that's no one's fault!

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

Only few of us(the haters) could see this coming, there is a whole thread full of people ("sunshiners and positive people") trashing us because we didn't agree and still don't agree with their point of view, the same "sunshiners" and "positive people" are still in denial about the off season maybe because they don't want to prove us "hater" right or because of pure blindness.

You trash every move. It's a self-fullfilling prophecy. Other people, that have diverse opinions, get credit.

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Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

Yeah, you're right. The team with a top 5 record last year, has only made on good move in the last five years. Pretty remarkable progress with all those bad decisions. We could be looking at 2-3 rings if they just managed to bat 50%.

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Smh.....well then, by all means I hope the front office ignores their combined years of actual experience and listens to your hunches and your crystal ball. You have no idea what they tried to get done. Maybe they tried to sign others and it couldn't be done.

All I know is their job depends on making the right moves, so I'm pretty sure they try every avenue. It's laughable when people on here actually believe they know better.

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

Only few of us(the haters) could see this coming, there is a whole thread full of people ("sunshiners and positive people") trashing us because we didn't agree and still don't agree with their point of view, the same "sunshiners" and "positive people" are still in denial about the off season maybe because they don't want to prove us "hater" right or because of pure blindness.

The fact is that the Pacers had the potential to have one of the best off seasons ever and they screwed it up by signing a bunch of scrubs, I mean they had everything, cap space, trade assets, picks, they were also under the cap what else do you Fing want?

They also had a one time opportunity to sign amnesty players without having to give up anything of value because they were under the cap but they decided not to pursuit anybody because "they knew what they were doing", how stupid can a front office be to decide not to sign quality players pretty much for free?

I've been saying it for while the Pacers signed the equivalent of Solomon Jones, Kareem Rush, Travis Diener and to do it they decided that this time they were going to spend 10mil dollar a year, how stupid is that?

Just imagine if the Pacers had a competent front office and instead of signing the scrub of Mahinmi(while giving away a trade asset) they have waited for Philly to amnesty Brand, or for Houston to amnesty Scola, imagine if instead of signing the scrub of Green they decided to keep Barbosa for veteran minimum, imagine if instead of DJ we have DC and instead of Young we have DJ.

If the Pacers had a competent front office they would have made similar moves to the ones I'm describing but instead they decided to make moves that only worse GM's could think about making, hell I don't think I can see another worse GM making the same stupid moves I just can't.

God forbid the front office try to upgrade our bench with some youth and athleticism. A former bench that simply got abused by the Miami Heat in the postseason (against a Heat team that is not deep at all). It hasn't paid off so far, but I can't fault them for at least trying. The status quo simply wasn't good enough...

God forbid the front office try to upgrade our bench with some youth and athleticism. A former bench that simply got abused by the Miami Heat in the postseason (against a Heat team that is not deep at all). It hasn't paid off so far, but I can't fault them for at least trying. The status quo simply wasn't good enough...

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Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

This isn't how an argument works, you haven't made an argument you've just said, "no you are wrong." In order for me to take you seriously you need to say you are wrong BECAUSE and then provide some examples. Where are these good moves? Which ones were good?

Top 5 record... how'd that end up for us? Fool's gold right, I mean, 6 playoff wins feels nice, but when you remember they were all against teams missing a player better than any player on our roster is kind of sobers it up a bit, doesn't it?

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

God forbid the front office try to upgrade our bench with some youth and athleticism. A former bench that simply got abused by the Miami Heat in the postseason (against a Heat team that is not deep at all). It hasn't paid off so far, but I can't fault them for at least trying. The status quo simply wasn't good enough...

Of course you can, by the way I wonder how great this bench is going to look against Miami? It's going to be ugly.

Failing to do that I think the F.O. should have forced the signings of Hibbert and Hill back a week or 2.

I don't think they could have moved the signings once they were scheduled, not just because that was essentailly a promise but because it starts to look like cap manipulation that the league could (and probably would have) come down on hard.

I agree that the original signing scheduling was shortsighted due to not taking the amnesty period into account. While Scola was a surprise, failing to anticipate that a surprise could happen was a huge failure by the FO, probably the single one I personally am willing to point to as completely avoidable. Definitely a mistake.

Imagine having DC backing up Hill and having the option of starting Barbosa, Jones, or Lance and never seeing Green or DJ on the floor.

Yes, DJ turned out to be a fail, but it isn't like DC is burning it up other than for a brief honeymoon period. Keeping DC would have ended up being a major problem for the bench and would likely have led to the FO being castigated heavily for having these weapons available off the bench but utterly failing to get a PG who could get them the ball or defend his way through a pick set by a wet paper bag.

And I think people have forgotten just how badly Barbosa was trashed around here after the Miami series. People were throwing him under the bus to the extent that I think there'd have been a revolt if he'd been re-signed.

BillS

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

I don't get it. I'm so baffled and confused at how bad he's been this year. It's like space jam, someone just stole his abilities and he forgot how to play. I dunno man...maybe he just doesn't wanna be here. Let him go back to the kitties then.

I've thought this same thing...which is ridiculous, because he came here as a FA.

Also, Frank pulled Lance after Lance played decent defense and did get called for a foul, but there was no penalty. Frank subs in Young and Miller immediately jukes him for a wide open 10 footer that he drains. I get that Frank is trying D for O and all that, but Lance had played pretty good defense. Young failed. And all that can affect a player's confidence.

Well, Lance did come right back in after that play. Lance came out, talked to the coaches, immediately came back in.

Miller had scored 8 straight...definition of insanity and all that. Trying to get on Frank for going to our second best man defender to slow that roll is ridiculous.

Finally, regarding the DJ situation, at some point you have to mail it in. $3.5M for this guy to literally be a negative force on the court. Hansbrough isn't a good option, as how much better will he be? It's worth a try, sure, but I believe you have to look for some veteran leadership to put on that unit.

There are 3 guys I'd be interested in, based on how they performed the past couple of seasons:

Lester Hudson (Real nice run with the Cavs, current FA. 10 day contracts become an option soon, maybe bring him in and see how it goes)
Baron Davis (Only reason he wasn't retained by the Cavs to play with Kyrie was his awful contract. FA, maybe he could bring some stability to the second unit)
Jordan Farmar (Hate myself for even mentioning it. This one is more a function of how bad DJ has been. But, MAYBE give Farmar some run and see what happens?)

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

Smh.....well then, by all means I hope the front office ignores their combined years of actual experience and listens to your hunches and your crystal ball. You have no idea what they tried to get done. Maybe they tried to sign others and it couldn't be done.

You don't need a cristal ball to know that Green, Young, Ian and DJ were going to fail, it wasn't that hard to predict and yes we have an idea what they didn't try to get done BECAUSE THEY HAD A CHANCE TO GET AMNESTY PLAYERS BUT THEY DECIDED NOT TO EVEN TRY.

All I know is their job depends on making the right moves, so I'm pretty sure they try every avenue. It's laughable when people on here actually believe they know better.

It's laughable to see you guys defending this front office even after the horrible results, I wonder what excuses are you guys going to make this next off season? hey at least you are going to have some excuses, like no cap space, no trade assets, no more amnesty players and a bunch of long term contracts, yep it sounds familiar doesn't it?

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

I wish I could be this bad at my job and have a fan base telling me I'm great at it. No, that's not even true, I have too much personal accountability to be satisfied with a decade of mediocrity at best.

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

I wish I could be this bad at my job and have a fan base telling me I'm great at it. No, that's not even true, I have too much personal accountability to be satisfied with a decade of mediocrity at best.

I would love to suck at my job and still have people telling me how great I am while getting pay a huge amount of money that would be nice.

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

Wait, you think we could have gotten Kaman as a backup at the same price range as who? Mahinmi? Kaman is getting $8M next year alone.
Are you saying have Kaman play all PF AND C bench minutes and therefore not get Mahinmi and dump Tyler as well? Then who plays the minutes when BOTH Roy and West are sitting?
.

Yes, I think we could have landed Kaman with a 4/32 contract or maybe a 3/24 and he's well worth double what Ian is getting. Kaman would have had as many or more minutes playing for the Pacers as the Mavs and money talks. Figuring out the rotation really isn't that hard with Kaman being able to play either the 4 or the 5 it's easy to keep a combination of 2 of the 3 on the floor at almost all times you just always have either West or Hibbert on the floor and sometimes both. It's almost like the rotation we played with Smits and the Davises. I wouldn't suggest completely eliminating Hans but I would suggest just giving him spot minutes.

Why did we have to even schedule the signings of Hibbert and Hill so early? Good time management which falls under the job radar of the people managing our F.O. would have opened many many doors, and every year there are bargain players available after the big overspending rush. Bird knew this and that's how he landed West.
No offense but it honestly sounds like you're making excuses for incompetent management.

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

People are happy and excited that we're hanging around .500. I guess .500 isn't terrible without Granger, until you realize that we have played the third weakest strength of schedule so far. Only Philly and Dallas have played weaker schedules, in the entire NBA. We have what, 2 wins against teams over .500 so far? Our record is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. But I guess we have to keep saying that when Granger gets back we're ECFinals bound, because that's even remotely likely. (hint: it isn't)

Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

Only few of us(the haters) could see this coming, there is a whole thread full of people ("sunshiners and positive people") trashing us because we didn't agree and still don't agree with their point of view, the same "sunshiners" and "positive people" are still in denial about the off season maybe because they don't want to prove us "hater" right or because of pure blindness.

The fact is that the Pacers had the potential to have one of the best off seasons ever and they screwed it up by signing a bunch of scrubs, I mean they had everything, cap space, trade assets, picks, they were also under the cap what else do you Fing want?

They also had a one time opportunity to sign amnesty players without having to give up anything of value because they were under the cap but they decided not to pursuit anybody because "they knew what they were doing", how stupid can a front office be to decide not to sign quality players pretty much for free?

I've been saying it for while the Pacers signed the equivalent of Solomon Jones, Kareem Rush, Travis Diener and to do it they decided that this time they were going to spend 10mil dollar a year, how stupid is that?

Just imagine if the Pacers had a competent front office and instead of signing the scrub of Mahinmi(while giving away a trade asset) they have waited for Philly to amnesty Brand, or for Houston to amnesty Scola, imagine if instead of signing the scrub of Green they decided to keep Barbosa for veteran minimum, imagine if instead of DJ we have DC and instead of Young we have DJ.

If the Pacers had a competent front office they would have made similar moves to the ones I'm describing but instead they decided to make moves that only worse GM's could think about making, hell I don't think I can see another worse GM making the same stupid moves I just can't.

If we had a competent front office we'd be looking at what the Mavs brought in for bargain prices. Cuban made us look like fools.